Collaborated Non-Fiction Writing using a familiar Worksheet (Modify a current activity in your classroom by completing the table below.)
Technology upgrade
To what curricular activity will you add technology?
Our District requires that every student will write (non-fiction) daily in every class. I am a “Specials” class (Art, PE, Spanish, Band) which means we must have 15-20 minutes of writing. I have a work sheet (included) that my students have been working on that utilizes the six most important questions (Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why?) for adding details to a sentence. These questions combined with a simple sentence (that I provide) develops a topic sentence. This topic sentence easily leads into several possible paragraphs.
I would like to add “collaboration” to this worksheet. My Computer Lab has a Smart Sync program that will pair students to collaboratively complete the worksheet.
How might the technology add educational value to the curricular activity?
After planning and drafting a writing assignment my students are particularly challenged to edit before they hand in the finished writing. Editing is perhaps one of the hardest steps for my students to actually "do"!
How might I assess the educational value added by the technology?
Normally I give immediate feedback for each student as they finish their worksheet. If they have followed the direction prompts correctly they should have a sentence that is distinctly improved compared to the simple sentence I provided. For this collaborative writing assignment I will collect the finished sentences, look them over, and choose several to present to the class anonymously. We will discuss the following points:
1) Is there a greater degree of accuracy? (grammatically and sentence structures) 2) Has collaboration made the writing more interesting and a step above “ok”?) 3) Is it a "above average” example of “editing” – especially capital letters, punctuation, etc. 4) Did collaboration help make the Extended sentence better? or more interesting to write?
How might you know if the technology is being used in an authentic or nonessential manner?
The primary way that I will know the work is authentically “collaborated” is there will be no verbal communication EXCEPT through the “collaborating” folders in the LAN Folder. I will assign partners on opposite sides of the Lab and this should also show how the addition of the collaboration “might” was an advantage. I am also interested to see if this modification might help in the quality of editing the students engage in.
(Modify a current activity in your classroom by completing the table below.)
Our District requires that every student will write (non-fiction) daily in every class. I am a “Specials” class (Art, PE, Spanish, Band) which means we must have 15-20 minutes of writing. I have a work sheet (included) that my students have been working on that utilizes the six most important questions (Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why?) for adding details to a sentence. These questions combined with a simple sentence (that I provide) develops a topic sentence. This topic sentence easily leads into several possible paragraphs.
(Worksheet is attached)
I would like to add “collaboration” to this worksheet. My Computer Lab has a Smart Sync program that will pair students to collaboratively complete the worksheet.
How might the technology add educational value to the curricular activity?
After planning and drafting a writing assignment my students are particularly challenged to edit before they hand in the finished writing. Editing is perhaps one of the hardest steps for my students to actually "do"!
Normally I give immediate feedback for each student as they finish their worksheet. If they have followed the direction prompts correctly they should have a sentence that is distinctly improved compared to the simple sentence I provided.
For this collaborative writing assignment I will collect the finished sentences, look them over, and choose several to present to the class anonymously. We will discuss the following points:
1) Is there a greater degree of accuracy? (grammatically and sentence structures)
2) Has collaboration made the writing more interesting and a step above “ok”?)
3) Is it a "above average” example of “editing” – especially capital letters, punctuation, etc.
4) Did collaboration help make the Extended sentence better? or more interesting to write?
How might you know if the technology is being used in an authentic or nonessential manner?
The primary way that I will know the work is authentically “collaborated” is there will be no verbal communication EXCEPT through the “collaborating” folders in the LAN Folder. I will assign partners on opposite sides of the Lab and this should also show how the addition of the collaboration “might” was an advantage.
I am also interested to see if this modification might help in the quality of editing the students engage in.